


i'm here but i'm really gone

by buries



Series: 100 word prompt fills [5]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, Season/Series 02, Stolen Moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:03:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13166529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buries/pseuds/buries
Summary: i wanted to see you.or the one where the cat stalks her prey ... or is it the other way around?





	i'm here but i'm really gone

**Author's Note:**

> i want to take this moment to blame my fantastically horrible friends, monkie and rei, for recommending this show to me. not only am i a sucker for anything dc, but i am a complete slut for batcat, which is what this show delivers on. i cannot stop marathoning this show!
> 
> i wrote this originally to fit somewhere post the theo arc of the first half of season 2. however, this can really fit in anywhere as i've left some details purposefully blank. this was also written for my "back alley" prompt.
> 
> title from alanis morisette's _hand in my pocket_. this is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine. thanks for reading! ♥

To catch your prey, it’s really simple.

Stalk it.

Selina climbs up the ladder outside of the apartments, feeling the rungs of metal bars beneath her catch the sounds of her feet. Quietly, she walks, heel to toe, heel to toe. That’s the mistake most people make — they want to be silent, so they try too hard. Trying too hard makes things louder than they should be.

_Boom!_

It doesn’t come from her.

Below her, she can hear the noises — there’s footsteps at the end of the alleyway, around the corner. There’s a fight inside the apartment buildings — two men, big, like Butch, doing the work of Penguin (probably) — she doesn’t concern herself with. That’s another lesson most predators forget to recite: don’t get involved in shit.

When she comes to the end of her chosen runway, she climbs over the metal bars — as light as a feather — and swings down, landing on her feet with a resounding clap of thunder. Drowned out by the honk of a car down the end of the alleyway, her prey doesn’t look up.

Good. He’s stupid.

She follows his mop of dark hair, easily blended into the dark alleyway under an untrained eye. Selina’s is trained — expertly trained — so she can spy him. The curls of his hair. The slope of his neck. Even the way he’s bowing his head, looking down at his phone like it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

Well, it _isn’t_.

As she walks, swings, and jumps, she climbs up ladders to only go down them, listening to them cascade quietly beneath the sounds of yelling — screaming from the Butch-like men, and laughter from the open windows of regular people sitting in front of their televisions — she finds herself coming to a standstill.

There’s cover threatening to block her prey from her view. Tin sheets cover the expanse of the alleyway. Selina thinks quick. She can’t jump down, as he’ll see her then, and she can’t walk on it, as it’s too loud, like horrible claps of gun fire. She continues along the staircase, leaping to the next, swinging expertly like the predator she is. 

She loses him.

Heart racing, she’s quick — and quickening makes her slightly sloppy, as desperation takes hold of her now. Swinging, crashing, running. As she reaches the end of the makeshift tin shed, she sees him.

Waving at her.

“Hi Selina.”

She rolls her eyes. Arms immediately crossing against her chest, she arches her brow. “Bruce,” she says, injecting as much venom in it as possible.

His smile only widens.

She wants to slap it off of him. “What are you doing in this side of town? Isn’t it — I don’t know — out of your way?”

“It is,” he says with an agreeable nod. When he ducks his head to do it, she finds herself missing his eyes — dark, if small from her vantage point, and the way his smile warms them. She’s always been able to tell what his smile means. “But,” he says, continuing. It takes her a moment to realise he’s talking. “I wanted to see you.”

She blinks. “Huh?”

“I,” he begins, punctuating the syllables, “wanted to see you.” To emphasise it, he points to himself then her.

“I got that, _dummy_ ,” she says, fingers curling into the metal railing. “Why?”

“Just wanted to.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“It is.”

“Because you say so?”

“Yes.”

Gritting her teeth, Selina walks away from where she stands — she doesn’t think of how he furrows his brow, the smile slipping from his face instantly — and descends the ladder, swinging at the end of it onto the next landing. She can see the bruise on his face from where he'd been hit. 

Crossing her arms again, she juts out her hip. “Where’s your butler? Does he know you’re here?”

Her prey sweeps himself into her fly trap. He gnaws his lip for a moment, glancing away from her.

She sighs. Purposefully. “Whatever,” she says with a wave of her hand. “I won’t tell him.”

Bruce looks up at her. The shape of his mouth curves into a small smile, warming Selina in the damp alleyway.

“Next time you want to find me, send a signal.”

His brows pull together. “A signal? I don’t understand.”

She mumbles, “Of course you wouldn’t.” Tilting her head to the side, she ignores her pounding heart. “Leave something. Put a cat in the sky. You have enough money to do that.”

“Okay,” he says uncertainly, the crinkle to his brow becoming incredibly frustrating for Selina.

Annoyed once more, she unfolds her arms, and speaks to him like he’s as thick as the bricks she climbs. “I don’t have a window for you to climb through.” His face falls. For someone who knows this — she doesn’t live in a mansion with fifty floors and a million windows, after all — he seems disappointed. Whatever’s running through his head is probably seriously stupid.

“ _If_ I do — and I mean _if_ , I’m free, you know, I got places to be, no one to impress, no one telling me what to do — I’ll let you know. Not that I think you could climb it.”

Bruce stands taller. She likes the tilt of his head. She can see those determined eyes of his better from this angle. “I can climb a window.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yeah-huh!”

Selina bursts into laughter. That infuriating furrow returns to shape his brows, and she can’t help but laugh a little more. It isn’t until she sees the corners of his lips tugging that she stops. Wiping her hands beneath her eyes dramatically, she smiles, shaking her head. “You’re a real prince, you know that?”

He shakes his head slightly. “Why?”

It’s one of Ivy’s stories. A princess needs a prince to rescue her, so he climbs the walls and enters through the window. Ivy had said it reminded her of Cat. Of Selina Kyle.

In this story, she isn't the princess who needs to be rescued.

She shrugs her shoulders. “Just sayin’. I’m not going to have some tower for you to climb up. I like climbing yours.”

“Me too,” he says, pink tinging his cheeks. Perhaps it’s the cold, but Selina likes the way he wears his embarrassment. 

He looks at her a little too long. Selina shifts on her feet, watching him watching her watch him. She wonders if she’ll be the first to break, if she’ll ask him again if he wants her to kiss him.

“I …” Bruce throws his thumb over his shoulder. “I better go. Open my window, you know?”

Selina won’t allow herself to acknowledge the disappointment blooming in her chest. She nods, a little too roughly. “Yeah, you do that. I bet you have a lot of princesses wanting to climb up to your window.”

Once she sees his face crumble, she knows it’s her time to leave.

“See ya around, Bruce,” she says. Freeing him from his little Cat Trap, she nods her head, though she doubts he sees it. Stepping onto the railing, she jumps, throwing herself over the edge of the upper staircase balcony, before she takes the steps and disappears into one of the windows.

She doubts he senses her ghosting him from the building’s open windows until he’s several buildings away.


End file.
